Playback method on RaGa (4GB model)

Hello,

My first mp3 player was the now ancient Philips SA1335 model. It performed so well I had it for nigh 9 years, when I bought the RaGa model, product # SA4RGA04KF/12.

Now, while the RaGa is better in every way, one thing annoys me compared to the older player. I don't know if there is something wrong with my unit, or is the particular playback algorithm I'm about to mention built in. The thing is, I don't use playlists. I put my music on the player in folders - each album in its own folder. The old SA1335 player would start playback from my chosen track inside the folder (let's say, track 1) and when it reached the end of the folder (let's say, track 8) - it STOPPED playback.

The new RaGa, however, reaches track 8 of a total of 8, and then automatically starts again from track 1. This in particular is very annoying. It's as if the 'Repeat All' function was on, while I distinctly have it OFF. Is there a way to make the player STOP playback after it's done playing the last song in the folder?

I tried restoring factory settings. It did not solve the problem. Restoring factory setting puts ON the "Repeat All" function by default. Of course, with Repeat All ON the player repeats the tracks inside the folder endlessly. But when I turn it OFF, it has no effect and the player behaves as if Repeat All is still on.

That happens only when I play music in FOLDER VIEW. When playing music in MUSIC view, then the playback stops after reaching the last song on the album. The only trouble is Music View sorts the song in the album alphabetically which is a very undesirable feature in itself. I want to listen to the tracks in the order they appear on the album, not by alphabetical order.

In lieu of this find, I'll re-formulate my question: can I prevent the RaGa from repeating all tracks when listening to music in FOLDER VIEW?

I have made a short video. The camera doesn't seem to capture the RaGa screen sharply, but it's visible enough. I choose an album with 11 tracks, the first track is called "Heaven" and the last is called "Lost Time". I choose the last for this demonstration and pressed play. I then clearly choose Repeat Off, and no Repeat icon was visible. Then I fast forward to the near-end of the song, and when it reaches the end it automatically repeats the whole album (that is, the tracks in the folder) from track 1 (in this case, named "Heaven").

I also included two screenshots with the unit's serial and model number, and the other displaying the info about the unit in Songbird.

I will repeat once again: this only happens in FOLDER VIEW. In MUSIC VIEW the Repeat option functions correctly. But MUSIC VIEW is useless for my listening because it sorts everything alphabetically and therefore messes the original album track order.

Also, I should mention that the 1.17 firmware update has improved nothing of the player's behavior. As a matter of fact, it introduced occasional freeze-ups and hang-ups, as well as that annoying "loud volume will damage your hearing" warning message. So, my next question: is there a method to downgrade the firmware?

The video is a bit blurry. I couldn't get the camera to capture Raga's screen sharply, but the details are nonetheless discernible.

In the video:

- I choose FOLDER VIEW.
- I navigate to an artist (HEALTH).
- I choose an album (Health) with 11 tracks (1st track: Heaven. 11th track: Lost Time).
- I navigate to the last, 11th, track and press play.
- I enter the SETTINGS menu and distinctly turn the Repeat function OFF.
- I then fast-forward the track to a few seconds before it ends.
- The track plays to the end, then automatically jumps again to the 1st track, just as I described originally.

I repeat: my playback problem happens only in FOLDER VIEW. For some reason, MUSIC VIEW doesn't automatically repeat all the tracks in a folder. But, because it sorts everything alphabetically and by doing so messes up the original album track order, it's useless to me.

P.S. For the sake of completeness, here's the unit's serial # (if it has any importance at all): JF1E1237002231.

You must've misinterpreted the video. I am scrolling down my root folder, not going into subfolders. That is the albums are all in RaGa's root folder. I have a maximum of two subfolder's level, of such hierarchy:

ARTIST NAME folder, and within it ARTIST'S ALBUM 1 folder, ARTIST'S ALBUM 2 folder, ARTIST'S ALBUM 3 folder, etc.

Here's a screenshot:

In the video I am in the root, I scrolled down to the HEALTH folder (artist name), and within that folder I chose Health (the album).

And just for the info, it doesn't matter where the album folder is, 1 level down, 2 levels down, or more - the result is the same. The player repeats all tracks whether I chose to or not. For what reasons, I don't know. All I wish to know is a) if this behavior is due to a singular faulty unit, or b) if this behavior is due to bad firmware programming on Philips' behalf, so I know what steps to take next.

Latest development: I went yesterday back to the store to return the Philips Raga and/or get a refund, but was unable to do so because the return/refund period has expired. The result is I'm stuck with a bug-riddle MP3 player.

Although I've been told that the "technicians were unable to reproduce my bug" making me believe it's only my unit that's faulty, I don't believe that is the case. Because I've updated the firmware from v1.08 to v1.17 and the problem persisted in the exact same manner on each one. If the bug was perhaps due to an accidental out-of-the-ordinary mistake on v1.08, it should've been corrected when I replaced it with v1.17. It wasn't, so I'm therefore led to conclude that my bug is present in all of the SA4RGA models by (poor) design.

If the technical support had been frank enough to admit as much initially instead of beating around the bush with useless information, I would've taken the unit back for a refund immediately and not wait until now in hope that my problem may be resolved, resulting in the store not accepting the player back. So not only I've lost money, I'm stuck with a faulty product.

The SA4RGA model specifically, besides the faulty "repeat" function that troubled me, is plagued by various other bugs I've not ever addressed, but I will now to warn other persons thinking of purchasing this player so that they may think twice.

These bugs include:

- partly-working, or completely non-functional playlists. Even though the site specifications claim playlist support, the usual m3u format doesn't seem to work, unless you create the playlist via the Songbird software. Even then, in Folder View it won't play them (Error: "File format not recognized!"). In Music View, it does play them but sometimes simply skips a song, or gives a "File not found!" message.

- incorrect ID3 tag display. When you press play, and then enter a menu and return back to the main screen, the artist or album or song name is displayed incorrectly in one way or another. For example, artist Russian Circles, album Memorial. The artist may be displayed as: Russian C [the rest of the word missing]; the album as: Russian C Memorial; Sometimes, when playing from playlists Asian characters replace some usual Latin letters.

- menu's not working. Some menus simply do not work as advertised. For example, it is said on page 8 of the manual that you can enter Music View, select and album or an artist, press the option/lock-unlock button and choose play to play the desired album. When I do that, the player returns the error message: "File not found!" I have to manually enter the album folder itself, navigate to the first song and then press play. This makes it impossible to press play when an artist folder is selected and for the player to automatically start playing all albums in that artist folder. That is, you to manually enter in each album, select the song you wish to start playback on, and press play. Playing an artist's albums in bulk is, of course, impossible.

- slow navigation. As has been noted, the navigation throughout the menus is pretty slow, especially when starting playback or changing songs manually where you have to sometimes wait up to 5-10 seconds before playback begins.

- hang-up/freezing. When locking the keys, the player sometimes simply freezes and restarts itself when you wish to unlock it. This has happened to me several times on the latest (1.17) firmware.

Other quirks:- Music View sorts everything alphabetically. Philips pushes their Music View so much, but beware: in Music View everything is sorted alphabetically, that include not only artist, their albums, but even songs within the album. Original track order doesn't matter, the Raga will arrange it all so it's from A-Z and so out of proper order. Try listening to Pink Floyd's concept albums then...

My experience in this has been most unsatisfactory, both with the product itself and the technical support which has been slow in responding and offered nothing more than generic solutions. I know it doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but Philips has lost me forever as a customer simply because they have the audacity to put such an unfinished product on the marketplace.

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New Posts

Hi Rafal, sorry for late response due to the system is not at my local home but in Belgium.
>>I have checked the SW/firmware version, this is mpeg-v23/mcu-v32.
This weekend I had a strange issue....